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Festival Celebrates Literacy The Arkansas Literary Festival will take place next weekend, April 8-11, 2010 in Little Rock, AR. If you’re anywhere close, please come! Books, theater, music, comics, books, games, chess, puppets, origami, Shakespeare, books, authors in the schools, authors in the library, authors just strolling around, books, authors everywhere, panels and workships, art [...]
The problem of writing from real life events I’m still looking for a new story, so I’ve been mining events in my life, just writing. For example, my son had to take a Parenting class in 9th grade and there were at least three hysterical stories from that class, including one egg-baby named Adolf. When [...]
“It Suddenly Dawned on Her”: Improving Your Character Epiphanies “And then, it suddenly dawned on her.” That phrase is the ultimate cliche for a character epiphany. The term epiphany was originally a religious term referring to the physical appearance of a deity. In fiction, it’s the point at which truth appears before a character; the [...]
You Must Apply! I always apply for grants for writers; I’ve never won a grant (though I was given a different type of award), but just going through the process is valuable. Think of it as a work-out for your submission-muscles; where would Arnold be today if he hadn’t worked out?
Create Vivid Images to Bring a Novel to Life “Vivid imagery makes a story world come alive,” says Stacy Whitman, Associate Editor at Wizards of the Coast (Update March, 2010: Whitman is now editorial director of the Tu Books imprint at Lee & Low.) Everyone agrees that a writer’s ability to create an image in [...]
Book Trailer Case Study: The Book of Spam Some book trailers are sponsored and developed by the publisher; others are done entirely by the author. Witness this glorious book trailer by Dan Armstrong and Dustin Black about The Book of Spam: A Most Glorious and Definitive Compendium of the World’s Favorite Canned Meat. (Atria Books, [...]
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Tips for Skype Author Visit: Be Prepared More and more, librarians and teachers are using video conferencing software to connect with authors. Before I did my first Skype Author Visit today, with a school in Arlington, VA, I went through several fine-tunings of my setup. These are all small tweaks, but I felt like they [...]
What’s Hot: Various “Best” Lists Here are a couple resources for keeping up with what’s hot in nonfiction series for kids and what’s selling at independent bookstores.
Elizabeth Bluemle of Publisher’s Weekly magazine has complied a list of 2010 children’s books with starred reviews so far this year. There were 182 titles with at least one starred review; only 3 titles received stars from five different places.
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